Friday, January 21, 2011

Now the fun stuff; through some nifty moving of under hood equipment I was able to squeeze in 14' x 2.5" quad by-pass shocks. I've since taken the jeep to the dezert with them on and without any tuning done yet the thing flys over whoops. Currently im running a 15stack for compression and 10stack for rebound with all the adjusters in their fully closed position. Once the rear is done i hope to get it really dialed in. The engine cage is made out of 1.75x.120wall DOM again and will be further gusseted.

Monday, January 10, 2011

After the suspension became fun enough to go fast in the dirt, a little more protection was needed. Im still in the process of making the rollcage but it will be built around the stock uprights. A new A-pillar halo bar and cross tubes will all be added using 1.75x.120wall DOM along with 3/16 plate gusseting. The beard buckets are held in place on the stock seat racks with brackets made out of angle iron and now people are held in place with some Crow Enterprises 3' padded 5 point harnesses

Friday, January 7, 2011

Soon afterwards I decided the stock suspension wasnt enough. I went with the Teraflex 2.5 lift kit which includes springs, shocks, brake bracket extensions, and bumpstop extensions. I also installed some Procomp steel wheels and BFG A/T KO tires (roughly 33"). Here is what the kit is capable of with the sway bar disconnected versus it connected.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

For the wiring of the lights I used a K&S fuse box, weather proof connectors and triple sealed switches. The switch panel is made by Daystar, While it did have a nice fit and matches the factory interior nicely, it does protrude enough to rub on shift boot but has not caused one of the switches to trip falsely yet. Eventually this switch panel will be reworked to have a metal face plate as well as 4 red LEDs to indicate that the corresponding switch is on. Wires were passed through the passenger side door frame through the infamous Styrofoam hole and then down under the glove box across to the center console.

After the clutch/financing fiasco, I had my Jeep back and went to the local grocery store to pick up a friend from work. The driver infront of me driving a brand new black Scion tC decided that Einstein wasn't all that smart when he said two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and backed into me. The new Rugged Ridge Modular bumper was a nice replacement, I chose the plain shorty with no attachments and no winch mount. The 2 Kragen specials HID lights on the bumper were salvaged from the roof of my Dakota, and matched with a pair of Hella 500s on KC HiLiTES brackets for the windows.

So this blog contraption will attempt to document the misadventures of My Jeep, Myself and a cast of characters known as FlyByRacing. The original plan for buying a Jeep Wrangler X was that it was cheap, solid axle 4wd and could be a reliable daily driver while I built my Dodge Dakota for go fast dezert activities. After purchasing the Jeep and putting 600 miles on the odometer, Midway Chrysler Jeep called to inform me that my financing did not go through as planned and i would need to return to the dealer to "work out some details." It was at this point i was able to inform Midway that the Jeep was already at the dealership since the night before the clutch miraculously exploded. To make a long story short Midway warranty repaired the clutch and fixed my financing so that I magically save about $5,000 over the term of the loan. Here it is in all its blue glory with paper plates at Ocotillo Wells CA sitting on top of Devils Slide.